This paper presents historiosophical insights of Stanisław Garfein‑Garski, a Polish philosopher and lawyer, who lived at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The author puts together fundamental elements that constitute the structure of philosophy of history, as presented systematically in Garfein‑Garski’s Uwagi nad zagadnieniem dziejów powszechnych i polskich („Remarks on the Issue of Universal, and Polish, History”, 1924). He characterizes the concept of national philosophy as developed by Garfein‑Garski. As its main aim, this study undertakes to provide a comprehensive analysis of the status of messianic ideology in Garfein‑Garski’s philosophical and historical considerations. In addition, an attempt has been made to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the place and role of that construction in the dynamics of the historical dispute over Polish messianism.

In this article Maurycy Mochnacki’s martyrological and messianic declarations in the Preface to the Uprising of the Polish Nation in 1830–1831 are examined in the context of the martyrological discourse in the literature of the Great Emigration. Such an affirmation may appear puzzling given Mochnacki’s rejection of martyrological interpretations of Poland’s history or messianic readings of his political philosophy, let alone his reputation of being radically opposed to Adam Mickiewicz’s idea of the sacrifi cial victimhood of the Polish nation. In this study the ideological and rhetorical aspects of their statements are compared and analysed. There can be little doubt that in the Preface Mochnacki’s phrasing is steeped in patriotic pathos which seems to be at odds with the tone of his other writings. This article claims that it was a tactical move on his part: he chose the familiar martyrological loci merely as a means to enlist the readers’ support for his own pragmatic programme of restoring Poland’s independence. A general conclusion to be drawn from this apparent inconsistency is that already at that stage (The Uprising was published in Paris in 1834) the logosphere of the Great Emigration had become so dominated by the martyrological discourse that Mochnacki could not afford to ignore it.

This is a comparative analysis of the key ideas regarding nation-building in the writ-ings of Adam Mickiewicz and Patrick Pearse, who have gone down to history as icons of the Polish and Irish national revival. In the case of Mickiewicz the article focuses on Dziady – Część III (Forefathers’ Eve – Part III), Konrad Wallenrod, Księgi narodu polskiego i pielgrzymstwa polskiego (Books of the Polish Nation and Poland’s Pilgrimage); the Irish materials include Pearce’s dramas The King and The Singer as well as Theobald Wolfe Tone’s ‘Speech from the Dock’. A trope common to all of them is the concept of ‘a beauti-ful, awesome voice’ / ‘a traitorous song’: literature as a mighty force that can create a community dedicated to the national cause. A comparison of passages that articulate the messianic idea indicates that, though understood by either writer in his own way, they both envision it as a catalyst turning nation-building literature into an apotheosis of martyrdom and death – a process which could be described as axiological metabolism. The article also examines the paradoxes of the projections of the myth of national unity in the work of both writers, especially in Mickiewicz’s Pan Tadeusz and Pearse’s short story ‘In My Garden’.

The aim of the author is to present some messianic and prophetic ideas, which are intrinsically fused with Karl Marx’s doctrines, and which had also been expressed in Jewish mystical thought as well as in the ethical message of the Bible. Although Marx did not obtain any proper Jewish education, he was not able to reject his own being-a-Jew or his inborn spirituality together with the implicit axio-normative system of Judaism. Marxist philosophy, generally speaking, is dominated by the postulate of building a better and a more just world, and by the ethical demand of creating a new reality, from which poverty and social marginalization would be eradicated. However, such views were not new. For, it was the author of the Biblical “Book of Devarim”, who earlier emphasized the need for social solidarity. There had also been some Jewish prophets who criticized kings and priests, and Tsfat Jewish mystics who had formulated an ethically radical tikkun ha-olam postulate in the 16th century.

This article looks at a character of Jakub Frank, the 18th-century Jewish Messianic leader, in Andrzej Żuławski’s book of idiosyncratic essays Moliwda (published in 1994). Żuławski, a controversial fi lm-maker and writer, whose historic musings are usually focused on an individual who embodies the spirit of the age in this case turns his attention to Jakub Frank. Moliwda is typical of the early phase of Żuławski’s writing career characterized by a radically revisionist explorations of the Age of the Enlightenment in search for parallels with the modern age and his own life. Jakub Frank is presented as a trickster, religious charlatan, political fraudster and fateful ancestor of 20th-century tyrants, but at the same time as a rebel against the idea of God and history enshrined in the Judaic tradition. The article views Żuławski’s interpretation as an attempt to appropriate certain elements of the history of religion to create an authoritarian vision of modernity and its historical roots, based on mechanisms of self-aggrandizement, sexualization of power and subversion of all hierarchies.